This is my last series of street photography in Hong Kong using a Fisheye lens. Fisheye lenses are often considered a ‘no-no’ among professional landscape and cityscape photographers. People see them as not much more than a gimmick. I often hear complaints about fisheye lenses because of ‘that ugly distortion’. I am a one camera one lens person and have strongly benefited from this approach, as it makes me pay more attention to what's happening on the street rather than worrying about which camera or lens combination would work best for a particular type of scene.

I have to admit that I was a bit skeptical about fisheye lenses myself. However, after using the fisheye for a while I slowly began to love it. There are just so much possibilities with fisheye lenses. And most important of all, they are super fun to use. Just think of crazy vertigos from rooftops or images in which distorted lines actually give meaning to an image. My fisheye lens has become a tool for so many interesting shots, and it’s now one of my favourite lenses.

Put a fisheye in front of your sensor and keep looking through the viewfinder. You will find so many interesting shapes and compositions that you would normally completely miss. It offers so much creativity. And that’s not all. A fisheye can also be super useful in getting shots that would normally require lots of trouble and are sometimes nearly impossible to make with a normal extreme wide angle lens. ​

​A fisheye generally curves straight lines. So if you photograph round shapes with it the curving gets less noticeable.

For street photography, architecture in Hong Kong is always a readily available photo element. To simply include buildings in your composition may seem a bit boring. By using fisheye lenses supporting diagonal fisheye effect with 180 degree angle of view, you can twist the buildings and streetscape on the four image corners to create exaggerated, interesting and lovable distortion effect, capturing a view that is invisible to the naked eyes.

The fisheye lens was used here to get a super wide view pointing upwards. The curved building on the right helps here, making you not even notice that this was shot with a fisheye. Using a fisheye lens opens up a world of possibilities which I think every photographer is looking for. I thoroughly enjoyed using it and would love to shoot more with it in the future. I would highly recommend that you also try it. It is going to be Fun !